Thirteenth Post - Lent 2017 with C. S. Lewis (Membership)

"Even in the life of the affections, much more in the Body of Christ, we step outside that world which says "I am as good as you." It is like turning from a march to a dance. It is like taking off our clothes. We become, as Chesterton said, taller when we bow, we become lowlier when we instruct... In this way then the Christian life defends the single personality from the collective, not be isolating him but by giving him the status of an organ in the mystical Body... The reason we recoil from this is that we have in our day started by getting the whole picture upside down. Starting with the doctrine that every individuality is "of infinite value," we then picture God as a kind of employment committee whose business it is to find suitable careers for souls, square holes for square pegs. In fact, however, the value of the individual does not lie in him. He is capable of receiving value. He receives it by union with Christ."
- C. S. Lewis, "Membership"

Here we move towards the end of Lewis's address on membership. Lewis has taken us through some interesting thoughts that at time run counter to what many Christians hear from their pulpits. In summary the three big ideas that Lewis applies throughout this address are:

1. The idea of a "solitary Christian" is foreign to what Scripture teaches us. If I am a believer and I live near other believers I should be in fellowship with them as we are all part of the body of Christ. Sadly, we have let our baser natures split us over non-crucial areas of doctrine. Rather than taking a view of "in essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things charity", we now make every word in a denomination's doctrinal statement a reason to go to war. Somethings are essential, others not so much so lets stop treating them as such.

2. A Christian identity is a public identity. Related to the first idea, we are called to public worship with one another. Extending this a bit, our Christian identity is not something that should be excised from everything else we do in life.

3. The Body of Christ is not a collective. We are not simply copies of each other but unique with our own special talents that we bring to the Body. Forced uniformity is something else foreign to Scripture. While certain ideas of equality exist for the good of the secular world, inequality is not something to be reviled but embraced. We are not the same. We do not have the same gifts. We cannot all do the same thing. We are all fallen and thus in the eyes of God have an equal need of salvation but that is not the same as saying we are all equal. We are all equal in that we are all in the same class, we have all fallen short of God's glory. We are also all equal in that the message of salvation has equal effect, accepting it brings us into full inheritance. It is enough for each, it is sufficient for all.